Screenshots of Old Desktop OSes

(typewritten.org)

98 points | by adunk 3 hours ago

21 comments

  • xnorswap 0 minutes ago
    This leaves me kind of sad, that we've had such little innovation in desktop / window-managers for 30 years.

    Certainly it doesn't feel any easier to manage multiple windows than when we had a quarter of the screen space.

  • jchw 1 hour ago
    Probably also worth dropping this here in the off chance someone here will be part of today's lucky 10,000. http://toastytech.com/guis/

    At first glance it looks like this is much more breadth over depth. Quite an array of systems here.

  • aidos 4 minutes ago
    Alleycat in CGA just hit me hard.

    For the people that didn’t live through this time, lining these images up makes it obvious why those that did speak of how visually impressive the Amiga was.

  • giamma 1 hour ago
    • walrus01 5 minutes ago
      Or GS/OS for the Apple IIgs, the weird "not exactly Mac OS" GUI.
    • cout 5 minutes ago
      There is the 16-bit Geoworks Ensemble (PC/GEOS), at least.
  • lynndotpy 1 hour ago
    I love this kind of thing :) I finally have a second site to bookmark alongside this similar collection: https://guidebookgallery.org/screenshots
  • darkwater 43 minutes ago
    Let's talk about the HP-9000 as depicted in http://www.typewritten.org/Media/Images/hpwindows-starbase-u...

    There is a `man` entry displayed in a terminal window there. The first Unix I've ever touched was HP-UX on an HP-9000 (server series, not the workstation one), and I have this memory that the underlined words you can see in that manpage as well were actually hyperlinks you can select and would bring you to the relevant section of the manpage that discussed that term. Am I fabricating that memory or is it real? I cannot find any info about it on the Internet.

    • aa-jv 12 minutes ago
      My 'first Unix' was MIPS Risc/OS, and it had that feature too.
    • yread 31 minutes ago
      I thought only `info` had hyperlinks
  • pedrogpimenta 27 minutes ago
    This is like porn for me :)

    It's one of my favourite things, looking at and analyzing older interfaces. Some are lovely, some are cute, some are ugly, but most are... "naïve"? I love to think about the effort, the research, the trials and tribulations. I feel I will spend a great deal of time in this page!

  • tomhow 1 hour ago
    Previously:

    Historical workstation desktop interface screenshots - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36191713 - June 2023 (55 comments)

    Retrotechnology – PC desktop screenshots from 1983-2005 - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15968745 - Dec 2017 (58 comments)

  • mananaysiempre 50 minutes ago
    Where did the author get a copy of pre-X-integration NeWS, I wonder (if indeed they did). I haven’t been able to locate one online after a lot of determined searching, but I also can’t bring myself to declare that there isn’t one because the name is so ungoogleable.
  • inatreecrown2 28 minutes ago
    What a wonderful resource! HP VUE has interesting color choices and a nice "Dock"
  • jeffreygoesto 58 minutes ago
  • oniony 24 minutes ago
    I love how little df has changed since 1985.
  • yjftsjthsd-h 1 hour ago
    It's funny how early some things do and don't look familiar. A decent chunk of unix-family OSs have changed some since then, but also kinda not. CDE 1.0 looks almost exactly like the latest version:)
  • livinglist 8 minutes ago
    Sometime I wish time goes slower
  • andsoitis 2 hours ago
    Year of release for each would be extra awesome.
  • bsdooby 1 hour ago
    Even the site with its NeXTStep style (love it).
  • Terr_ 1 hour ago
    > DECWindows

    > /tmp/med_16.sixel

    ... Is that Sinfest? From before the author went weird? If so, then that's certainly a very different way of feeling old than I expected when clicking the link.

  • grebc 1 hour ago
    Amazing resource!
  • barrenko 1 hour ago
    "We have learned nothing in 10,000 years."
    • grebc 1 hour ago
      Probably more accurately 40-45 years.
    • WalterGR 1 hour ago
      I don’t see any pie menus, so I’m leaning towards agreement...
      • mananaysiempre 53 minutes ago
        Patents are very good at stifling progress and learning, even bogus ones.
  • vladsiu 42 minutes ago
    [dead]